Venice Is Banning Tourists from Some Parts of the City

From April 28 to May 1, one of the biggest Italian holiday weekends of the year, tourists will be restricted from visiting popular landmarks like the Piazzale Roma and the Santiago Calatrava-designed Constitution Bridge. Unless you show a residential or commuter Venezia Unica pass at checkpoints, you're not getting through.

Tourists heading to Rialto or Piazza San Marco will be required to follow alternative routes, and can no longer walk the Strada Nuova, Venice's most famous boulevard. You and your car will be turned away at the lagoon if you don't have a pre-reserved parking spot in the city, and even the ferries will be adjusted, dropping passengers off at Fondamente Nuove, on the city's north side, rather than right in the middle of the action at Riva degli Schiavoni. Though these new policies and checkpoints are only in place for the weekend, Venice's mayor Luigi Brugnaro has also hinted that they could be periodically extended through the summer, Corriere della Sera, a Milanese newspaper, reports.

It's all part of Venice's self-preservation plan, to stave off the destructive effects of the 30 million tourists that visit each year. "We cannot prevent access to the city, and we do not want [to], but we must regulate the flow of tourists," Brugnaro said Thursday. The new restrictions are part of the city's "urgent measures to guarantee public safety, security and liveability," according to the mayor, and are likely a result of the thousands of tourists who descended on the city for Easter, when wait times for vaporetto water buses between Canal Grande, Santa Chiara, and San Marco were more than an hour.

While this segregation of tourists and locals is the most extreme of Venice's overtourism measures, it's far from the first. Last year, the city launched a #EnjoyRespectVenezia campaign urging tourists not to pause too long on bridges, in an effort to keep foot traffic moving. The city already has plans in place to move the largest cruise ships that port close to the historic center's canals to the more industrial area of Marghera. And earlier this month, Brugnaro announced a renewed interest in charging day-trippers (like cruise ship passengers and road-tripping tourists) for entry to the city.